When he lived in Nova Scotia, Jeffrey from Montreal, Canada, noted that the word some was often used as an intensifier, as in That’s some good or She’s some pretty or She’s right some pretty. Also common in the dialects of Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland is the pulmonic ingressive, a sharp intake of air to indicate agreement or approval. This linguistic feature is heard in many parts of the world, including Maine. With reference to Mainers, it’s usually represented in writing as Ayup! Two helpful references: Sandra Clarke’s Newfoundland and Labrador English (Bookshop|Amazon) and From Clerks to Corpora (Bookshop|Amazon), a collection of essays on linguistics. This is part of a complete episode.
After our conversation about towns with extremely short names, many listeners wrote to tell us about Why, Arizona. Others pointed out that there are towns called Ely in Iowa, Minnesota, and Nevada. Other super-short appellations include Rye, New...
Debbie from Crawfordsville, Florida, says that when she and her husband reach an impasse while working on something, they’ll say Let’s grok about it, which they use to mean “Let’s think about it.” Grok was coined by...
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